RSS
Antisemitism scholars like me study perpetrators. We should know more about their victims.
(JTA) — The ruthless Hamas attack on civilian communities inside Israel shocked not only Israelis but much of the world. Pictures and grisly videos — some broadcast live by the perpetrators — flooded the world. Many governments and elected officials in the West swiftly expressed solidarity with Israel and empathy for the countless innocent victims, condemning the slaughter.
At the same time, as news was still coming out about the scope of Hamas attack and days before Israel’s retaliation, in cities and on college campuses across the United States, pro-Palestinian rallies and demonstrations showed a shocking lack of empathy for the massacred and kidnapped Israelis, among them young people attending a music festival, elderly Holocaust survivors, women, and children.
As a scholar of antisemitism watching these rallies, I wondered why there was such a reflexive disregard, even contempt, for Jewish victims. Why weren’t Jewish and Israeli victims of violence seen as human victims of violence but were immediately pushed into the political discourse about the Israeli government’s policies and actions? Why was their humanity erased?
Some of this contempt surely stems from the polarization wrought by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some is rooted in centuries of theologically grounded habits of thinking about Jews as unworthy of the respect accorded to other kinds of human beings, and even unworthy of having their own land.
But some blame for this I think can also be laid on how those who study and write about antisemitism, including myself, have approached this subject.
For almost a century, most of us have focused on dissecting antisemitic ideas and ideologies. But — with the very important exception of those studying the Holocaust—we have not paid enough attention to the effect these ideas, images, and actions have on Jews as human beings.
Having taught a comparative course on antisemitism and racism at Fordham University, I have been thinking a lot about different scholarly approaches to the study of antisemitism and racism and their social impact.
Consider for example how scholars generally approach anti-Black racism. Many have focused on the impact of racism on Black communities and Black individuals — no matter how successful and accomplished they are. President Barack Obama spoke about being “mistaken for a waiter at a gala” and acknowledged the experience many Black Americans have had of being “mistaken for a robber and to be handcuffed, or worse.” We all can picture Ruby Bridges trying to get to school. We can think of Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson,and Carol Denise McNair, killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963. We can all picture George Floyd and understand the significance of the words uttered by Eric Garner: “I can’t breathe.”
Yet, few Americans, or students on college campuses, would be hard-pressed to name a victim of antisemitism, or explain, beyond the deaths of millions of Jews in Europe, how indeed Jews have experienced antisemitism. Few would know that the college admissions process is the way it is in part because it was designed to exclude Jews from elite universities. Few would be able to articulate how Jews must feel when antisemitic memes circulate online, or when they hear slurs, see swastikas or Stars of David spray-painted on walls in workplaces, or see demonstrations near their neighborhoods, organized on Saturdays and coinciding with the Shabbat, in which people hold signs that say, “keep the world clean” — the obvious implication being, of Jews.
The focus on the Black experience of racism has a long history: It goes back at least to the publication of slave narratives and continues to the present day, as we read the works of James Baldwin, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Toni Morrison or George Yancy. In contrast, scholars of antisemitism have long focused not on victims but on proponents and perpetrators.
One result is that most educated Americans have been trained to acknowledge the full range of anti-Black racism and its impact on individuals, from public lynchings to microaggressions. In contrast, Jews tend to be viewed as privileged, with the harm done to them downplayed or unseen.
There is a cost to both approaches. The works on racism have been subsumed under “Black history,” and the relatively recent effort to shift the gaze onto white supremacists and their ideologies, and to make them part of our understanding of American history, has led to a fierce backlash, including book bans.
In contrast, the focus on antisemitic ideas and their perpetrators has arguably resulted in a comparative lack of empathy for the Jews victimized by such ideas. Even worse: paradoxically, by studying and writing about the perpetrators, we spotlight and preserve their antisemitic ideas. Our readers then are exposed to toxic ideas without seeing their impact on real people.
The Biden-Harris’s U.S. National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism, released in May, advocated for “(1) increasing awareness and understanding of antisemitism, including its threat to America, and broaden appreciation of Jewish American heritage; (2) improving safety and security for Jewish communities; (3) reversing the normalization of antisemitism and countering antisemitic discrimination; and (4) building cross-community solidarity and collective action against hate.”
Coupling “increasing awareness and understanding of antisemitism” with “appreciation of Jewish American heritage” is helpful in diversifying the image of Jews and their role in society. Indeed, teaching about Jewish history and culture is one of the most powerful antidotes to antisemitism.
But, as the responses to the Hamas massacres in Israel suggest, we need to do more to build empathy and recognize the impact of antisemitism on Jewish individuals — from microaggressions to outright violence.
A version of this article first appeared in Public Seminar.
—
The post Antisemitism scholars like me study perpetrators. We should know more about their victims. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
RSS
Jewish Leaders in UK, Canada, Australia Urge Governments to Reconsider Palestinian State Recognition
Women hold up flags during a a pro-Palestinian rally in Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia, Oct. 15, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Lewis Jackson
Jewish umbrella organizations in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have jointly expressed “grave concerns” over their governments’ plans to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly next week.
In a joint statement, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and the Canadian Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs urged their governments to reconsider their intention to recognize a “State of Palestine.”
This month, several Western countries — including France — are expected to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly, marking their latest effort to increase international pressure on Israel over the war in Gaza.
However, Jewish communities in these countries have strongly opposed the move, urging their governments to concentrate diplomatic efforts on securing the release of all remaining Israeli hostages held by Hamas and dismantling the Palestinian terrorist group’s military and political power.
They also emphasized the need to ensure humanitarian aid reaches civilians in Gaza without being diverted for terrorist operations and that all parties comply with international law.
“We are gravely concerned that our governments’ announced intentions to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN this month are seen by Hamas as a reward for its violence and rejectionism towards Israel, and these announcements have therefore lessened rather than maximized pressure for the hostages’ release and for Hamas to disarm,” the joint statement read.
“Extremists have answered [Hamas’s] call for escalations in global violence by carrying out brutal assaults on Jews — citizens of each of our countries,”” it continued. “For the sake of a better future for Israelis, Palestinians, and the wider Middle East, it is an imperative to avoid serving this agenda.”
Supporters of the recognition argue that this move would actually undermine Hamas’s control, noting that the terrorist group has never supported a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and would likely oppose a Palestinian state since it would have no governing role.
However, Hamas has praised such plans to recognize a Palestinian state as “the fruits of Oct. 7,” citing the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, as the reason for increasing Western support.
“The fruits of Oct. 7 are what caused the entire world to open its eyes to the Palestinian issue,” senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad said in a recent interview with Al Jazeera.
Israeli officials and opponents of such recognition argue that Hamad’s remarks show these countries are, essentially, rewarding acts of terrorism.
US President Donald Trump has strongly opposed the move, warning that it would hinder Gaza ceasefire negotiations and empower Hamas instead of advancing peace.
During a bilateral meeting on Thursday amid Trump’s state visit to the UK, he was asked about Britain’s plans to recognize a Palestinian state.
“I have a disagreement with the prime minister on that score, one of our few disagreements, actually,” Trump said, referring to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
For his part, Starmer said he and Trump were aligned on the shared goal of achieving peace in the region.
“We absolutely agree on the need for peace and a road map, because the situation in Gaza is intolerable,” the British leader said.
In their joint statement, Jewish communities in the UK, Canada, and Australia argued that their governments’ plans to recognize a Palestinian state without making Hamas’s disarmament and the release of hostages a precondition would set back, rather than advance, prospects for a genuine two-state peace.
“Our governments are in effect saying that the fulfilment of these requirements post-recognition will be taken on trust and left for some unspecified time in the future,” the statement read. “This is a posture that lacks credibility, borders on recklessness, and sets up Palestinian statehood for failure from the outset.”
“Let it never be forgotten that Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza initiated this war [and] they remain openly committed to the genocidal goal of destroying Israel as a state and expelling or eradicating its Jewish population,” it continued.
Western powers have been negotiating with the Palestinian Authority (PA) on conditions for Gaza governance after Hamas is removed from power, while the PA continues to pledge reforms — a strategy experts say is unlikely to succeed given its lack of credibility and ongoing support for terrorism against Israel.
Jewish leaders have argued that these governments appear to be accepting the PA’s promises of reform at face value, rather than waiting to see if its behavior truly changes.
The PA, which has long been riddled with accusations of corruption, has maintained for years a so-called “pay-for-slay” program, which rewards terrorists and their families for carrying out attacks against Israelis.
Under the policy, the Palestinian Authority Martyr’s Fund makes official payments to Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, the families of “martyrs”” killed in attacks on Israelis, and injured Palestinian terrorists. Reports estimate that approximately 8 percent of the PA’s budget is allocated to paying stipends to convicted terrorists and their families.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas had announced plans to reform this system earlier this year, but the PA has continued to issue payments.
The Palestinian Authority has been lying to the world for decades.
Once again, they are trying to whitewash the “Pay-for-Slay” policy of payments to terrorists and their families. Instead of paying the “Prisoners” and “Martyrs” through the old method, they are paying through a… https://t.co/IDlSEBqYDn
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) September 17, 2025
The PA has also avoided holding elections for nearly 20 years, largely due to Abbas’s limited support among Palestinians.
According to a poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR), if an agreement is reached to end the war in Gaza, only 40 percent of Palestinians “support the return of the PA to managing the affairs of the Gaza Strip,” while 56 percent oppose it.
RSS
‘Antisemitism Is Alive and Well’: Swastika Graffiti at Dartmouth College Shakes Jewish Community
Swastika graffitied outside of Jewish student’s dormitory at Dartmouth College. Photo: Screenshot/X.
An unknown person or group graffitied a swastika, the symbol of the Nazi Party, outside the dormitory of a Jewish student at Dartmouth College — at least the second such incident at an elite US college during the early weeks of fall semester.
“This act of bigotry and targeted harassment at a person’s home will not be tolerated on our campus,” Dartmouth president Sian Beilock said in a statement on Wednesday, noting that both the local police force and the college’s own security department are investigating the incident. “Antisemitism has no place at Dartmouth. Acts of bigotry — and all forms of hate — are deeply hurtful and stand in direct opposition to what each of us is working so hard to create at Dartmouth. This is not who we are.”
The graffitiing of a swastika as a method of intimidation and expression of hate on the campus came as a shock to Dartmouth’s Jewish community and stands out for being perpetrated only days before Jews across the US and the world observe Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
“With Jewish high holidays around the corner, our community feels the impact of this crime even more profoundly,” Ruby Benjamin, a Jewish Dartmouth student and president of the campus Chabad, told The Dartmouth, the college’s official student newspaper. “In a time that should be marked with joy, we are forced to look hatred in the eye. While we are disgusted by yesterday’s events, we are not afraid. Today, as always, we stand together as a strong community.”
Another Jewish student and Hillel International affiliate, Jacob Markman told the paper, “This just shows that antisemitism is alive and well, and that it is something we need to take seriously and address.”
The incident came about a week after an unknown person graffitied antisemitic messages inside the Weinstein residence hall at New York University.
Dartmouth College, located in Hanover, New Hampshire, has seen this kind of incident before.
In April 2023, someone carved a swastika into dirt on The Green of Dartmouth College, a a five- acre, grassy common space at the center of the school’s campus. Three years earlier, in 2020, a former student, Carlos Wilcox, vandalized a public menorah on campus by shooting it with a pellet gun during the 2020 Hanukkah holiday. The 20-year-old Bronx, New York native also shot the windows of several college buildings, causing $1,500 in damage in total. Wilcox, who managed to dodge a hate crime charge and was charged with felony criminal mischief, was expelled from the college and banned from campus.
In April 2022, according to The Dartmouth, he reached an agreement with the prosecutors of Grafton County, where Dartmouth is located, under which the charges against him were dropped in exchange for his paying the college $2,ooo in damages, completing 100 hours of community service, and attending substance abuse counseling. Wilcox was also ordered to meet with Dartmouth Chabad Rabbi Moshe Leib Gray and other members of the campus community.
Throughout the process, he maintained his innocence, claiming that another student, Zachary Wang, shot the menorah and that he only purchased the pellet gun and witnessed the incident.
Dartmouth has also been the site of extreme anti-Zionist activity.
In May, a pro-Hamas group which calls itself the “New Deal Coalition” (NDC) commandeered the anteroom of the Parkhurst Hall administrative building but limited the demonstration to business hours, as its members went home when it was shuttered at 6 pm. Before leaving the building, however, the group contributed to injuries sustained by a member of Beilock’s staff and an officer of the school’s Department of Safety and Security officer, according to The Dartmouth.
During the unauthorized demonstration, the agitators shouted “free, free Palestine,” words shouted only recently by another anti-Israel activist who allegedly murdered two Israeli diplomats outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC.
The following day, the group at Dartmouth defended the behavior, arguing that it is a legitimate response to the college’s rejection of a proposal — inspired by the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement — to divest from armaments and aerospace manufacturers which sell to Israel and its recent announcement of a new think tank, the Davidson Institute for Global Security, which it claims is linked to the Jewish state.
“We took this escalated action — one deployed several times in Dartmouth’s history to protest against apartheid — because Dartmouth funded, US-backed Israel has been escalating its genocidal assault on Palestine,” the group wrote. “In an effort to ‘dialogue,’ a group of students, staff, and faculty, and alumni spent months drafting extensively researched 55-page divestment proposal … How did the college respond? They rejected divestment on every single criteria and, the day after, announced that they are reinvesting in colonial genocide with the launch of the Davidson Institute for Global Security.”
The statement concluded with an ambiguous threat.
“So long as you fund actively imperialistic violence, we will continue to hold you accountable,” it said. “There is only one solution! Intifada! Revolution!”
Amid these disturbances, the Dartmouth administration has declined to legitimate the claims of anti-Zionists who demand a boycott of Israel.
A week before the demonstration, Dartmouth College’s Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility (ACIR) unanimously rejected a proposal imploring the school to adopt the BDS movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as a step toward its eventual elimination.
“By a vote of nine to zero, [ACIR] at Dartmouth College finds that the divestment proposal submitted by Dartmouth Divest for Palestine and dated Feb. 18, 2025, does not meet criteria, laid out in the Dartmouth Board of Trustees’ Statement on Investment and Social Responsibility and in ACIR’s charge, that must be satisfied for the proposal to undergo further review,” the committee said in a report explaining its decision. “ACIR recommends not to advance the proposal.”
A copy of the document reviewed by The Algemeiner shows that the committee evaluated the BDS proposal, submitted by the Dartmouth Divest for Palestine (DDP) group, based on five criteria regarding the college’s divestment history, capacity to address controversial issues through discourse and learning, and campus unity. It concluded that DDP “partially” met one of them by demonstrating that Dartmouth has divested from a country or industry in the past to establish its moral credibility on pressing cultural and geopolitical issues but noted that its analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lacks nuance, betraying the group’s “lack of engagement with counter arguments.”
ACIR added that DDP also does not account for the sheer divisiveness of BDS and its potential to “degrade” rather than facilitate “additional dialogue on campus.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
RSS
Michigan Mayor Says Resident ‘Not Welcome’ in City After Objecting to Street Sign Named After Terrorist Supporter
Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud speaks at a press conference in Dearborn, Michigan. Photo: Screenshot
A City Council meeting in Dearborn, Michigan erupted into controversy last week after Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, a Democrat, told a local resident he was “not welcome” when the man objected to renaming a street sign after an Arab-American journalist who has praised internationally designated terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
The honorary sign in question recognizes Osama Siblani, founder of The Arab American News, a bilingual weekly that has served Dearborn’s Arab-American community for more than four decades. Supporters praise Siblani for amplifying Arab and Muslim voices in US media. However, critics argue that his past remarks regarding terrorist groups make the recognition inappropriate.
At last week’s meeting, Edward “Ted” Barham, a Christian resident of Dearborn — a heavily Muslim city known for being a hub of anti-Israel sentiment — objected to the sign and accused Siblani of backing Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which are designated as terrorist organizations by the US government.
“I feel like having that sign up there is almost like naming a street Hezbollah Street or Hamas Street,” Barham said.
“Hezbollah bombed the embassy in Beirut, including many Americans. I just feel it’s quite inappropriate,” Barham continued, likely referring to Hezbollah’s 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks at the Beirut International Airport, killing 241 American service members and dozens of French soldiers.
“He talks about how the blood of the martyrs irrigates the land of Palestine,” Barham added.
The resident explained that, as a Christian, he wanted to encourage peace and closed by quoting Jesus: “Blessed are the peacemakers.”
Hammoud intervened during Barham’s remarks, accusing him of spreading bigotry against Muslims in past online videos.
“Although you live here, I want you to know that as mayor, you are not welcome here,” Hammoud said. “The day you move out of this city will be the day that I launch a parade celebrating the fact that you moved out.”
The mayor called Barham “a bigot, and you are racist, and you’re an Islamophobe,” before telling his constituent to figure out how to live with the sign.
“The best suggestion I have for you is to not drive on Warren Avenue or to close your eyes while you’re doing it. His name is up there, and I spoke at a ceremony celebrating it because he’s done a lot for this community,” Hammoud said.
Hammoud has established himself as an especially outspoken critic of Israel who has repeatedly condemned Israel’s military operations against Hamas, accusing the Jewish state of committing a “genocide” in Gaza and an “ethnic cleansing” in the West Bank. Following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, a brutal onslaught that started the current Gaza war, Hammoud condemned the Jewish state as a “racist apartheid system that criminalizes Palestinian existence.”
The mayor’s comments, captured on video, have since sparked debate. Critics say they reflect intolerance toward dissenting views, while supporters argue Hammoud was standing up against anti-Muslim rhetoric.
The street sign in question, located on Warren Avenue, was approved earlier this month by the Wayne County Commission, not the Dearborn City Council. County officials, including Council President Michael Sareini, attended an unveiling ceremony where Hammoud praised Siblani as a voice of the Arab-American community for more than 40 years.
During a 2022 “Nakba Day” rally, Silbani urged Muslim Americans to continue to “fight” for the Palestinian cause, encouraging some to even take up arms against Israel. “Nakba” is the Arabic term for “catastrophe” used by Palestinians and anti-Israel activists to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
“Believe me, everyone should fight within his means. They will fight with stones, others will fight with guns, others will fight with planes, drones, and rockets, others will fight with their voices, and others will fight with their hands and say, ‘Free, free Palestine!’” Siblani said in 2022.
Siblani has defended his comments, telling the Daily Mail that his words were a call for justice, not violence. “‘People have the right to fight occupation and oppression by all necessary means and it is justified and accepted under international law. I said here in America we fight with our words of support for free Palestine,” he said, adding that thousands of residents have praised the street sign as recognition of his decades of community work.
“I stand firm on my opinion of people’s right to fight oppression and occupation by all means as they seek their freedom and sovereignty including the Palestinian people,” Silbani continued.
Siblani has also defended Hamas, the terrorist group which slaughtered roughly 1,200 people and abducted 251 hostages from Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, as “freedom fighters.”
At a Ford Community and Performing Arts Center rally in 2023, Siblani defended Hamas as “not a terrorist organization.”
“The terrorist is Benjamin Netanyahu and his government,” he said during the rally, referring to Israel’s prime minister.
According to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Siblani also told a crowd chanting “death to Israel” at a September 2024 rally in Dearborn that Hezbollah will “take care of the job” by destroying the Jewish state. He later threatened to send Israeli Jews “back to Poland.”
Dearborn, home to one of the largest Muslim and Arab American populations in the US, has long been a focal point for debates over identity, politics, and Middle East issues. In the two years following the Hamas-led massacres in Israel, Dearborn has transformed into a tinderbox of protests and demonstrations signaling opposition to the Jewish state.